City Futures – Page 3 – Cabot Institute for the Environment blog

Bold Leadership, radical action – what Bristol residents want on climate change

Posted on November 30, 2020March 31, 2023 by janet.crompton

What do Bristol residents really think about climate change? We know that Bristol has a reputation as a green city, but is it just ‘greenies’ at the centre of town who care? What kinds of policies would be acceptable or desirable? Are people aware of what the Council is planning to do?

Our team of eight researchers set out to all four corners of the city with clipboards , to find out what Bristol residents have to say. They approached people at bus stops, in leisure centres, at libraries and on the street to ask questions like:

What comes to mind when you think of climate change?
How does it make you feel?
Are you aware of any planned changes in the city in relation to climate change?
Are there any future changes you would or wouldn’t want to see?

The answers came in from 333 residents of all parts of the city in February and March 2020, and then a further 1343 residents took part in an online survey in June, which included an additional question about whether Covid-19 had shifted their views on climate change in any way.

Careful analysis of the responses revealed the following insights:

Bristol residents are concerned about climate change and would welcome City leadership and policy that enables them to take action. People want change, but they don’t necessarily have the will or indeed power to act as individuals.
The emotion of fear was widely identified but what this meant for action was mixed. In some cases it motivated change while in others it held back action.
Transport is the biggest area of concern talked about both before and during the Covid-19 lockdown.
Residents are willing to see radical change in the city, and are frustrated that the visible steps taken so far aren’t enough to address the climate emergency. with the lack of visible steps that have been taken so far.
Equality and fairness is important to Bristolians, including an expectation that all sectors should pull their weight and that the cost of adaptation to climate change should not be carried by, or lead to the exclusion of, those least able to pay.
Residents expect a high level of integrity from Bristol City Council.

This research coincides with the launch of Bristol’s One City Climate Strategy, a cross-sector approach to the climate emergency in Bristol. The promotion and communication of the One City Climate Strategy is a good opportunity for increasing understanding of the city’s plans, and involving residents in shaping what we do, and we hope that this research can inform that process. It is clear that people from across the city care about climate change, and are afraid and angry, but they want to see bold and consistent city wide leadership, and to know that the efforts they make to contribute to the change we need are part of a wider collective effort where everyone pulls their weight.

To find out more about what people said and the recommendations coming out of this research, you can download the full report.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Dr Jack Nicholls and Emilia Melville. This blog was reposted with kind permission from Praxis Research.

Is extreme heat an underestimated risk in Bristol?

Posted on November 19, 2020March 31, 2023 by janet.crompton

Evidence that the Earth is warming at an alarming rate is indisputable, having almost doubled per decade since 1981 (relative to 1880-1981). In many countries, this warming has been accompanied by more frequent and severe heatwaves – prolonged periods of significantly above-average temperatures – especially during summer months.

Heatwaves pose significant threats to human health including discomfort, heatstroke and in extreme cases, death. In the summer of 2003 (one that I am sure many remember for its tropical temperatures), these threats were clear. A European heatwave event killed over 70,000 people across the continent – over 2,000 of these deaths were in England alone. As if these statistics weren’t alarming enough, projections suggest that by 2050, such summers could occur every other year and by 2080, a similar heatwave could kill three times as many people.

Cities face heightened risks

Heat-health risks are not equally distributed. Cities face heightened risks due to the urban heat island (UHI) effect, where urban areas exhibit warmer temperatures than surrounding rural areas. This is primarily due to the concentration of dark, impervious surfaces. In the event of a heatwave, cities are therefore not only threatened by even warmer temperatures, but also by high population densities which creates greater exposure to such extreme heat.

UHIs have been observed and modelled across several of the UK’s largest cities. For example, in Birmingham an UHI intensity (the difference between urban and rural temperatures) of 9°C has been recorded. Some estimates for Manchester and London reach 10°C. However, little research has been conducted into the UK’s smaller cities, including Bristol, despite their rapidly growing populations.

Heat vulnerability

In the UK an ageing population implies that heat vulnerability will increase, especially in light of warming projections. Several other contributors to heat vulnerability are also well-established, including underlying health conditions and income. However, the relative influence of different factors is extremely context specific. What drives heat vulnerability in one city may play an insignificant role in another, making the development of tailored risk mitigation policies particularly difficult without location-specific research.

Climate resilience in Bristol

In 2018, Bristol declared ambitious intentions to be climate resilient by 2030. To achieve this, several specific targets have been put in place, including:

The adaptation of infrastructure to cope with extreme heat
The avoidance of heat-related deaths

Yet, the same report that outlines these goals also highlights an insufficient understanding of hotspots and heat risk in Bristol. This poses the question – how will Bristol achieve these targets without knowing where to target resources?

Bristol’s urban heat island

Considering the above, over the summer I worked on my MSc dissertation with two broad aims:

Quantify Bristol’s urban heat island
Map heat vulnerability across Bristol wards

Using a cloud-free Landsat image from a heatwave day in June 2018, I produced one of the first high-resolution maps of Bristol’s UHI (see below). The results were alarming, with several hotspots of 7-9°C in the central wards of Lawrence Hill, Easton and Southville. Maximum UHI intensity was almost 12°C, recorded at a warehouse in Avonmouth and Lawrence Weston. Though this magnitude may be amplified by the heatwave event, these findings still suggest Bristol exhibits an UHI similar to that of much larger cities including London, Birmingham and even Paris.

Image credit: Vicky Norton

Heat vulnerability in Bristol

Exploratory statistics revealed two principal determinants of an individual’s vulnerability to extreme heat in Bristol:

Their socioeconomic status
The combined effects of isolation, minority status and housing type.

These determinants were scored for each ward and compiled to create a heat vulnerability index (HVI). Even more concerning than Bristol’s surprising UHI intensity is that wards exhibiting the greatest heat vulnerability coincide with areas of greatest UHI intensity – Lawrence Hill and Easton (see below).

What’s also interesting about these findings is the composition of heat vulnerability in Bristol. Whilst socioeconomic status is a common determinant in many studies, the influential role of minority status and housing type appears particularly specific to Bristol. Unlike general UK projections, old age was also deemed an insignificant contributor to heat vulnerability in Bristol. Instead, the prevalence of a younger population suggests those under five years of age are of greater concern.

Image credit: Vicky Norton

Implications

But what do these findings mean for Bristol’s climate resilience endeavours? Firstly, they suggest Bristol’s UHI may be a much greater concern than previously thought, necessitating more immediate, effective mitigation efforts. Secondly, they reiterate the context specific nature of heat vulnerability and the importance of conducting location specific research. Considering UHI intensity and ward-level heat vulnerability, these findings provide a starting point for guiding adaptive and mitigative resource allocation. If Bristol is to achieve climate resilience by 2030, initial action may be best targeted towards areas most at risk – Lawrence Hill and Easton – and tailored to those most vulnerable.

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This blog is written by Vicky Norton, who has recently completed an MSc in Environmental Policy and Management run by Caboteer Dr Sean Fox.

Vicky Norton

E-scooters in Bristol: their potential contribution to a more sustainable transport system

Posted on November 18, 2020March 31, 2023 by janet.crompton

Voi e-scooter parked across the pavement outside Victoria Rooms in Clifton. Image credit: Georgina de Courcy-Bower

At the end of October this year, the Swedish company Voi launched their e-scooters in Bristol as part of a pilot scheme. The government brought the scheme forward in the hope that e-scooters would ease demand for public transport and allow for social distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic. Earlier in the year, Marvin Rees said that he hoped e-scooters would help the city reduce congestion and air pollution. These are two key issues associated with a car-dominated transport system present in Bristol and many other cities around the world.

I have been investigating whether e-scooters could help Bristol to meet its sustainable transport targets. These include meeting net-zero emissions by 2030 and simultaneously reducing inequality within the city. However, between 2005 and 2017 the decrease in CO2 emissions in Bristol’s transport sector was only 9%. To reach net-zero by 2030, there will need to be an 88% decrease from the 2005 baseline.

E-scooters have been called a ‘last mile’ solution to fill the gaps between transport links and homes or offices which could draw more people away from their cars. My research has found that policies towards the new micromobility focused on decreasing transport inequalities in the United States. Conversely in Europe, there was more consideration for the environmental impact, but both continents have policies emphasising the importance of safety.

E-scooters and the environment

Despite cities frequently referencing environmental sustainability, few were found to have policies or regulations to ensure this. There was often an assumption that e-scooter users would previously have made their journey by car. However, in Paris only 8% of users would have driven if e-scooters were not an option. This was higher in the US, with cities consistently having a modal shift from cars of over 30%. However, this was explained by the lower availability of public transport compared with European cities. Therefore, US policies would not have the desired effect in Bristol.

A second environmental consideration is the lifecycle analysis of e-scooters. This shows that e-scooters still produce a significant amount of CO2 emissions, particularly when compared to active travel. E-scooters used as part of a sharing scheme are also frequently vandalised which shortens their lifespan. In UK cities which started their trials before Bristol, operators have already complained of high rates of vandalism. Many are also thrown into rivers which causes ecological impacts.

E-scooters and inequality

Many cities in the US have regulations aiming to improve access to transport for low-income communities. This has included unsuccessful discounted services. Operators have often failed to comply or the schemes have not been marketed. A more successful regulation was rebalancing e-scooters to ensure that some are placed in deprived communities. However, operators have claimed that this is economically and environmentally unsustainable. Using large trucks to move e-scooters around the city will increase CO2 emissions associated with them.

It is important that environmental goals do not come at the cost of excluding certain communities in the city, and vice versa. However, overall the most significant factor for decreasing inequality or decreasing CO2 emissions is which mode the shift comes from.

The most effective way to encourage a modal shift away from cars is to reallocate space to other modes and start designing cities around people. However, making such a significant change in the way we live our lives will be met with backlash from some. E-scooters can help mitigate this by providing an alternative mode of transport that could make the reallocation of road space to micromobilities more politically feasible.

Safety of e-scooters

What can be agreed upon by everyone is that e-scooters must be safe for users and for those around them. The main complaints about e-scooters are that they block pavements for more vulnerable pedestrians and in most cities, e-scooters are banned from pavement riding. Nevertheless, casual observation shows that this is often ignored. However, in Portland it was found that the presence of cycle lanes and lower speed limits decreased e-scooter pavement use by around 30%. In Bristol, 70% of respondents for a Sustrans survey supported building more cycle tracks even if it took space away from other traffic. The presence of cycle tracks could also lead to more active travel which has co-benefits for individual health and wellbeing.

Governance of e-scooters

E-scooters and other shared mobility technologies are part of a change in governance. There is now collaboration between public and private and it is essential that communication between the two is transparent. Local authorities must make clear their goals and set boundaries for operators without restricting them to the extent that they are unable to provide their services.

Overall, e-scooters alone are not going to solve our dysfunctional urban transport systems. However, they might provide a catalyst for more radical change away from the car-dominated city.

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This blog was written by Georgina de Courcy-Bower, a recent graduate from the MSc Environmental Policy and Management course at the University of Bristol. The blog is based on her dissertation which was supervised by Cabot Institute member Dr Sean Fox.

Georgina de Courcey-Bower

Rebuilding Bristol as a city of care

Posted on May 21, 2020March 31, 2023 by janet.crompton

I was asked to speak at an event organised by the Mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees and the City Office team that brought together academics and other interested in rebuilding Bristol. I was asked to respond to the following question and thought people might be interested in reading the full text here:

‘Bristol, along with cities all over the globe, is facing an unprecedented health, economic and social crisis. This brings both a challenge and an opportunity to rebuild our city. If we do it well, Bristol will be more inclusive, more sustainable and more resilient in the face of future shocks. If we do it without thinking, falling into old assumptions (i.e. badly), the opposite is true. How should we rebuild our city?’

In 5 minutes I can only hope to raise some issues and matters of concern. There are many present here today who will know a lot more than me about aspects of social justice – especially around race, disability and class and I hope they will join in afterwards with comments and concerns. This is intended to be a provocation for ongoing conversations that bring diverse knowledges and expertise together so that we can begin to rebuild our city to be more inclusive, sustainable and resilient.

We knew before this pandemic struck that many communities and organisations were facing an ongoing crisis – a crisis in which inequalities are growing, where austerity and a desire for growth at all costs had pushed cities around the world into a situation where social, economic and environmental justice were comprised.

The pandemic has helped to make visible where people and communities are falling through the cracks in our cities and illustrated more widely that a return to business as usual is not an attractive option for those of us interested in social, economic and environmental justice. It is not an option for those families living in crowded accommodation who don’t have enough food on a daily basis, it’s not an option for those living with disabilities or ill health who rely on inadequate, time rationed segments of care delivered by care workers who are undervalued and underpaid. It’s not an option either if we want to take our responsibilities to the planet seriously.

So what have we seen during this crisis that helps us to understand our challenges as a city and the assets that we have to draw on in rebuilding them.

We have seen the incredible efforts of the community and voluntary sector in the city who have built on established and designed new alliances to tackle their communities’ needs. These initiatives have gone way beyond reactively responding to the everyday, urgent needs of their communities. For instance, Knowle West Alliance, developed over the last two years, brings together large and small community organisations- they have set up a community food bank, coordinated volunteers, communicated through digital and postal service with all community members, used the amazing Bristol Can Do platform to recruit volunteers and assign them to a brand new befriending service and committed to reflecting and learning as part of this discussion. The Support Hub for older people, set up in 2 weeks in order to bring together organisations in the city concerned with the needs of older people, were determined to draw on their collective expertise to provide a range of support for older people including practical and emotional support but also virtual activities. These examples, and many others, demonstrate how through working collaboratively across sectors and alongside our communities we can go way beyond provision of ‘crisis’ support. They have shown the value and strength of the civil society sector in the city in working alongside communities at the margins building on their ongoing, long term work and trusted relationships with the communities that they serve.

We have finally appreciated and valued the key workers who support systems of care in the city – the care workers, teachers, food delivery workers and community development workers. Raising questions around how we might change our systems of value in the city.

Our neighbourhoods and streets have fostered intergenerational and cross cultural discussion and we have made new friends – we have come together in Whats App groups and through socially distant street gatherings to share our concerns, to provide care where this has been needed and, importantly, to laugh and cry together. A question we might want to explore here relates to how we might develop ‘community’ across our neighbourhoods providing the support we all need across generational and cultural difference, in and between hyperlocal areas?

Our green spaces have provided the space for those without gardens to enjoy fresh air and exercise, whilst socially distancing. Roads, free of cars, have provided new found space for children and families to play and cleaner air, particularly in those areas of the city where poor air quality is a particular concern. Lizzi has already suggested the need to capitalize on this in bringing forward environmental change in our city and globally.

I would argue that in Bristol’s response to COVID 19 we have seen that our city is a place resplendent with learning, creativity, innovation and care.

I want to pick up particularly on this last word which I think is highly relevant. I want to suggest that if we want to tackle issues of social, economic and environmental justice we need to retain a focus on the role of care in the city. I draw on the feminist scholar Jean Tronto’s definition of care as ‘everything that we do to maintain, continue and repair ‘our’ world so that we can live in it as well as possible. Feminist approaches to care foreground our interdependencies, and encourage us to take notice of peoples’ lived experiences, their existing knowledges and expertise and the stories they tell about them. They encourage us to do what Jane Jacob’s the great American City planner suggested – to take notice of the complexity of our city, to look closely ‘at the most ordinary scenes and events and attempt to see what they mean and whether any threads of principle emerge.’ (Jacobs, 161, p.23). I think we have seen a lot of these ordinary scenes during this pandemic but that we need to work quickly to recognise the threads of principles and new values that might emerge.

My suggestion is that we need to work care-fully together to build on the wide range of vital and lively existing learning, innovation and creativity in our cities. However, a word of caution. We must not make assumptions that there is consensus on what these principles or values might be and we need to recognize that ‘rebuilding Bristol’, especially if we want to challenge concerns around social, economic and environmental justice, will not be easy. We will need to continually ask ‘who is not involved?’ We will need to ensure that we work with others who are ‘not like us’ or with whom we disagree. We will need to design new processes and methods for this and we will have to be open to building new relational capacities in the process, with each other but also with the environment surrounding us.

I want to finish by saying this is a moment that we need to grasp head on drawing on the many assets that we have in the city, many of which have been made more visible through this crisis. We have achieved so much in the city during this pandemic which will support us to work differently to challenge questions of social, economic and environmental justice in the city.

**Watch Helen discuss this subject area in more detail in our Annual Lecture 2019 below**

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Helen Manchester, Associate Professor in Digital Inequalities & Urban Futures at the School of Education, University of Bristol and a Bristol City Fellow. This blog was reposted with kind permission from the School of Education blog. View the original blog.

Helen Manchester

Bees and butterflies are under threat from urbanisation – here’s how city-dwellers can help

Posted on April 29, 2019April 13, 2023 by janet.crompton

File 20190115 152977 13ovnf5.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1 — All a-flutter.
Shutterstock.

Pollinators such as bees, hoverflies and butterflies, are responsible for the reproduction of many flowering plants and help to produce more than three quarters of the world’s crop species. Globally, the value of the services provided by pollinators is estimated at between US$235 billion and US$577 billion.

It’s alarming, then, that pollinators are under threat from factors including more intense farming, climate change, disease and changing land use, such as urbanisation. Yet recent studies have suggested that urban areas could actually be beneficial, at least for some pollinators, as higher numbers of bee species have been recorded in UK towns and cities, compared with neighbouring farmland.

To find out which parts of towns and cities are better for bees and other pollinators, our research team carried out fieldwork in nine different types of land in four UK cities: Bristol, Reading, Leeds and Edinburgh.

An easy win

Urban areas are a complex mosaic of different land uses and habitats. We surveyed pollinators in allotments (also known as community gardens), cemeteries and churchyards, residential gardens, public parks, other green spaces (such as playing fields), nature reserves, road verges, pavements and man-made surfaces such as car parks or industrial estates.

Our results suggest that allotments are good places for bees and other pollinating insects, and that creating more allotments will benefit the pollinators in towns and cities. Allotments are beneficial for human health and well-being, and also help boost local food production.

In the UK, there are waiting lists for allotments in many areas, so local authorities and urban planners need to recognise that creating more allotment sites is a winning move, which will benefit people, pollinators and sustainable food production.

Good tips for green thumbs

We also recorded high numbers of pollinating insects in gardens. Residential gardens made up between a quarter and a third of the total area of the four cities we sampled, so they’re really a crucial habitat for bees and other pollinators in cities. That’s why urban planners and developers need to create new housing developments with gardens.

But it’s not just the quantity of gardens that matters, it’s the quality, too. And there’s a lot that residents can do to ensure their gardens provide a good environment for pollinators.

Rather than paving, decking and neatly mown lawns, gardeners need to be planting flowers, shrubs and bushes that are good for pollinators. Choose plants that have plenty of pollen and nectar that is accessible to pollinators, and aim to have flowers throughout the year to provide a constant supply of food. Our research suggests that borage and lavender are particularly attractive for pollinators.

Often plants and seeds in garden centres are labelled with pollinator logos to help gardeners choose suitable varieties – although a recent study found that that ornamental plants on sale can contain pesticides that are harmful to pollinators, so gardeners should check this with retailers before buying.
Weeds are important too; our results suggest that dandelions, buttercups and brambles are important flowers for pollinators. So create more space for pollinators by mowing less often to allow flowers to grow, and leaving weedy corners, since undisturbed areas make good nesting sites.

An urban refuge

Parks, road verges and other green spaces make up around a third of cities, however our study found that they contain far fewer pollinators than gardens. Our results suggest that increasing the numbers of flowers in these areas, potentially by mowing less often, could have a real benefit for pollinators (and save money). There are already several initiatives underway to encourage local authorities to mow less often.

Roundhay Park in Leeds: not a flower in sight.
Shutterstock.

Ensuring there are healthy populations of pollinators will benefit the native plants and ecosystems in urban areas, as well as anyone who is growing food in their garden or allotment. Towns and cities could act as important refuges for pollinators in the wider landscape, especially since agricultural areas can be limited in terms of the habitat they provide.

It’s crucial for local authorities, urban planners, gardeners and land managers to do their bit to improve the way towns and cities are managed for pollinators. National pollinator strategies already exist for several countries, and local pollinator strategies and action plans are helping to bring together the key stakeholders in cities. Wider adoption of this type of united approach will help to improve towns and cities for both the people and pollinators that live there.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Dr Katherine Baldock, NERC Knowledge Exchange Fellow, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

How University-city partnerships can help us tackle the global climate emergency

Posted on April 17, 2019April 3, 2023 by janet.crompton

Image credit: Chris Bhan

Climate scientists have made it clear: we are in a global state of emergency. The International Panel on Climate Change report published late last year was a wake-up call to the world – if we don’t limit warming to 1.5 degrees, 10 million more people will be exposed to flood risk. If we don’t, it will be much, much harder to grow crops and have affordable food. If we don’t, we’ll have more extreme weather, which will undoubtedly impact the most vulnerable. If we don’t, the coral reefs will be almost 100% gone.

And yet… National governments are failing to act with the urgency demanded by our climate crisis. The commitments each country made to reduce emissions under the Paris Agreement won’t get us there – not even close.

How can we make progress in the face of political paralysis?

The answer is local action. Specifically, it’s action at the city-scale that has excited and inspired a plethora of researchers at the Cabot Institute in recent years. Cities are complex places of contradiction – they are where our most significant environmental impacts will be borne out through consumption and emissions, whilst simultaneously being places of inspirational leadership, of rapid change, and of innovation.

City governments across the world are increasingly taking the lead and recognising that radically changing the way our cities are designed and powered is essential to reducing carbon emissions [ref 1; ref 2]. They are standing against national powers to make a change (see for example We Are Still In, a coalition of cities and other non-state actors responding to Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement). And they are forming innovative partnerships to galvanise action quickly – both in terms of lowering emissions and planning for adaptation to climate change (see for example C40 Cities or 100 Resilient Cities).

Bristol is among them. It was a combination of grass-roots leadership and City support that led to Bristol being the first and only UK city to be awarded the title of European Green Capital in 2015. In November 2018, Bristol City Council unanimously passed the Council Motion to declare a Climate Emergency in Bristol and pledge to make the city Carbon neutral by 2030. It was the first local government authority to do so in the UK.

Today, the University of Bristol is the first UK university to stand alongside its city and declare a Climate Emergency. Far from being a symbolic gesture, these declarations reflect strong local political will to tackle climate change, and they are backed up by action at all levels of the University – from committing to become a carbon neutral campus by 2030, to making education on sustainable futures available to every student.

What’s clear, and potentially even more exciting, is that Universities and cities have a unique opportunity collaborate to innovate for change in truly meaningful and cutting-edge ways.

Within the Cabot Institute for the Environment, we’ve been fortunate to build research partnerships with the many inspiring individuals and organisations in our city. Whether it’s collaborating with the City Council to evaluate the economics of a low carbon Bristol, or with We the Curious to create street art on the impacts and solutions to climate change, or with Ujima Radio and the Bristol Green Capital Partnership to improve inclusion in the city’s sustainability movement – we’ve seen that we can achieve more when we recognise and value knowledge from within and outside the walls of the institution, and make progress together.

Bristol City Council has been working closely with both academics and students at the University of Bristol to explore ways to deliver the highly ambitious target of carbon neutrality by 2030. Cabot Institute researchers have also been working alongside the City Office to embed the UN Sustainable Development Goals in the recently launched One City Plan, which reflects a unique effort to bring together partners from across the public, private and non-profit sectors to collectively define a vision for the city and chart a path towards achieving it. There are many organisations and citizens working to make Bristol more sustainable. The One City Plan is designed to amplify these efforts by improving coordination and encouraging new partnerships.

The good news is that Bristol has already begun reducing its carbon emissions, having cut per capita emissions by 1.76 tonnes since 2010. However, we need to accelerate decarbonisation to avert a crisis and make our contribution to tackling the climate emergency.

We can achieve this in Bristol if we work together in partnership, and we must. We simply cannot wait for our national governments to act. We look forward to standing with our city to meet this challenge together.

This blog is written by Dr Sean Fox and Hayley Shaw with contributions from Dr Alix Dietzel and Allan Macleod.

Dr Sean Fox, Senior Lecturer in Global Development in the School of Geographical Sciences and City Futures theme lead at Cabot Institute for the Environment.

Hayley Shaw, Manager of Cabot Institute for the Environment.

Social and environmental justice

Posted on February 13, 2019April 3, 2023 by janet.crompton

This is Bristol: Numerous green businesses and voluntary organisations, a multitude of cyclists, recyclers and circular economists; ethical banking and a local currency; a Council-owned windfarm, Energy Company and low-carbon investment strategy; local food production, community energy, sustainable housing developments. The 2015 EU Green Capital and the owner of the most rapid and extensive decarbonisation ambition of any city or nation in the world.

This is also Bristol: Congestion, polluted air and a polluted harbour, heat-inefficient Victorian homes, fuel poverty and food deserts. Economic inequality magnified by environmental inequality.

Bristol has been a leader in the environmental movement for decades, and it has been a leader in tackling climate change. I’ve been studying climate change for 30 years but am still in awe of the Bristol spirit. And since arriving in Bristol, I’ve tried to help my small bit: I was with George Ferguson in Paris when he pledged carbon neutrality by 2050; I also collaborated on the Council’s Resilience Strategy and, more recently, Marvin Rees’ One City Approach, and especially its environmental theme.

Consequently, I was enthused to see Bristol pass a motion of intent, declaring a Climate Emergency and a desire to become carbon neutral. Carbon neutral across all sectors. By 2030. This is the ambitious Bristol that I love.

And yet I am wary. I am wary that in our fear of catastrophic climate change and in our urgency to declare a Climate Emergency, we fail to build a genuinely inclusive movement. And such a movement is needed to achieve the tremendous change that is required.

We must drive our society towards sustainability, circularity and carbon neutrality. It is necessary to protect our civilisation, to protect all of us and our planet. But most of all, we must minimise climate change because climate change is unjust. It will affect all of us, but it will affect some of us more. It will affect children more than their parents. The young more than the old.

And it will affect the poor, the vulnerable, the isolated – and it will do so not just because of the unfortunate coincidences of geography but because of the structural inequalities in that same society that we are fighting to save. Heat waves kill the poor, they kill outdoor labourers, the working class. Sea level rise will trap, drown and infect the poor, those without the means and wealth to freely move among nations. The volatility of food production will be particularly devastating to those who already struggle to feed their families, who already lean on food banks and charity. Hurricanes and storms will continue to devastate the communities with the least recourse to escape, who likely already live in flood-prone areas, who can be sacrificed, like those in Puerto Rico, with minimal political repercussions.

Climate change is an affront to our putative ideals of fairness and equality. It is classist. It is racist.

But if climate action is a question of social justice, then those marginalised groups must be part of the movement. They must set the agenda of that movement. They must lead the movement. And if they are not, those of us who claim the title ‘environmentalist’ cannot ask why they are not engaged, and instead must ask how we have failed. We must challenge ourselves, our privilege, our dialogue and our institutions and understand how we have excluded them. Have we invited marginalised groups to participate in our events and our agenda? Or have we honestly co-created an open space for multiple agendas? Have we recognised that destroying inequality is a legitimate starting point for fighting climate change? Have we recognised that many of our proposed solutions – entirely rational solutions – can be implicitly racist or sexist?

If we are going to prevent catastrophic climate change, then we must act fast and with unrelenting persistence. But at the same time, we must be patient, check our privilege and listen to those who have been marginalised by past environmental movements. This is especially true because it is those same marginalised groups who will most likely bear the greatest burden of climate change. We assault these groups doubly if we do not centre their voices in our common cause. And because the environmental movement is unstoppable – technologically and socially inevitable and therefore economically inevitable – exclusion from these opportunities is yet a third assault.

I am by no means an expert on co-creating powerful social movements, fuelled by equality amongst the participants and effective in achieving change. But I have been lucky enough to work and learn from those who do. They have shown undeserved patience and understanding and trust.

They taught me that it is vital to recognise not just your own privilege but the economic, historical or social privileges of the institutions one represents. In my case, a world-leading university. In other cases, a business or a trust – even a small green business or cash-starved charity. And even a movement, especially a movement perceived as being by and for the white middle class.

Having recognised that privilege and in many cases the structural racism, sexism and wider inequalities that come with it, it is our obligation to decolonise those institutions rather than to plead for yet more labour from those our institution oppresses. It is our obligation to do our own research and to commit our own emotional energy and labour. And when we do work with marginalised groups, we are compelled to respect their expertise by paying them for their services. Major institutions will pay consultants 100s of thousands of pounds for a re-brand or governance review but ask marginalised groups to help address our diversity challenges by serving for free – by serving on our Boards, attending our workshops, advising on our projects. It is insulting to imply that the privilege of entering our institutions and projects is adequate compensation for their time, their re-lived trauma or their expertise.

Of course, a recognition of the limitations of our institutions, our organisations and our movements is only the start. The next steps involve a fundamental reckoning with the word ‘our’ in those projects – who has owned these, who owns them now, who will own them in the future? And given those answers, are they fit for the challenge at hand? Are they projects capable of becoming genuinely co-owned, co-creative spaces, where not just new members are welcomed but also their new ideas, challenges and perspectives? Or are these projects that must be completely deconstructed, making way for the more energetic ones to come? Do we ourselves have the humility to deconstruct our own projects and cede our labour to those of someone else?

These are challenging questions and the answers are not as simple as I imply. Those of us who have been fighting climate change, plastics in the ocean, toxins in our soil, pollution in the air, and the non-sustainable exploitation of our planet are deeply invested in the struggle and in the solutions we have forged. It is not trivial to patiently draw in new perspectives nor to have our ideas questioned – we have been fighting an establishment for five decades that has been guilty of predatory delay and manipulation of public understanding. We are right to be wary of anything that delays action, right to be uncivil, impatient and intemperate.

But it is also time to concede that a thousand ripples have yet to become a wave. Certainly not the wave needed to dismantle the environmental degradation that has become a near-inextricable feature of our society.

In Bristol, we have the potential to create this wave together. We have a Partnership, a One City Approach and a cross-party ambition without precedent. This is the time to re-invigorate our environmental movement, to align it with our other challenges, to become genuinely inclusive and diverse. It will not succeed with a simple majority, with a mere 52% of the vote. It will have to be a new political project but with an apolitical community that rejects the discourse of division and embraces new and unexpected collaborations.

It will be a community that makes use of all of our talent and is united not with a single strategy or action plan but a common cause and shared values. It will be a community that thrives through a multitude of equally respected agendas.
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This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Professor Rich Pancost, Head of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol. This blog has been republished with kind permission from the Mayor of Bristol. View the original blog.

Professor Rich Pancost

Local students + local communities = action on the local environment

Posted on October 19, 2018April 13, 2023 by janet.crompton

As part of Green Great Britain Week, supported by BEIS, we are posting a series of blogs throughout the week highlighting what work is going on at the University of Bristol’s Cabot Institute for the Environment to help provide up to date climate science, technology and solutions for government and industry. We will also be highlighting some of the big sustainability actions happening across the University and local community in order to do our part to mitigate the negative effects of global warming. Today our blog will look at ‘Climate action in communities.

Geography students from the University of Bristol spent February 2018 working on air, soil and water quality research projects for local organisations and community groups, including Bristol Green Capital Partnership members. Below is a summary of each project, the findings and next steps.

Bristol City Council – Bristol Urban Heat Island effect

Students investigated the effects of urban and suburban heat islands within Bristol compared to local rural areas. Urban Heat Island can impact human health, air and water quality and energy demand in the City with implications for future planning and city resilience. This project aimed to provide early groundwork for Bristol City Council in developing a better understanding of the Urban Heat Island in the city. The group used fifteen Tinytags across the city to collect temperature data and gained secondary data from local weather stations and building management systems. The group used a contour graph (see image below) to illustrate the UHIs they found, there was significant differences (c.1.3C) between rural sites, such as Fenswood Farm, Long Ashton compared to urban sites in close proximity, such as Hotwells Road. Bristol City Council will be using this data and other insights generated through participation in the project to inform i) the co-development of an urban temperature monitoring network and ii) further research into the Urban Heat Island effect.

Malago Valley Conservation Group – water pollution in the River Malago

Students investigated how water quality varied along the River Malago in Bishopsworth and what biological impact the dam has on microplastics and pollution in the river. Initially the group collected GPS data to map the river course and used water quality samples from 40 sites along the river to record nutrient, chlorophyll and microplastic data. The team found that some microplastic build up was evident before dams and weirs along the river and nitrate concentrations increased downstream through nitrification which suggests there may be impacts on the ecology of the river. Overall the river was found to be relatively healthy according to DEFRA and Environment Agency data, but there were recommended actions to protect its health in the future. The Malago Valley Conservation Group will be using the findings to plan conversation work programmes with their volunteers.

Bristol Avon Rivers Trust – water pollution in Three Brooks Lake

Students investigated the Three Brooks Lake and accompanying urban brooks in North Bristol to see if there was a difference in pollution levels entering the lake from two brooks from separate local residential areas. The group collected twenty water samples from the site and secondary data from the Environment Agency to examine variations in the pH, nutrient concentrations, turbidity (cloudiness of the water) and microplastics levels at the site. The findings suggested that there is likely to be a difference in the water quality of the two brooks and that the lake may be a sink for water pollution in the area. The Three Brooks Nature Reserve group will use the findings to support the development of a local management plan and the Bristol Avon Rivers Trust will be using the findings to contribute to their existing knowledge base for the catchment and to search for funding to develop the research further and to undertake any necessary improvements.

Friends of Badock’s Wood – wildflower cultivation in Badock’s Wood

Students investigated the soil conditions in Badock’s Wood to support the cultivation of wildflower meadows. The group collected soil cores from three meadows and a control meadow to analyse the soil moisture and organic matter content in the lab. Most wildflower species prefer calcareous soils (>15% calcium) with low phosphorous and high nitrogen content to grow optimally. Findings showed that two meadows have calcareous soils and two were on the borderline, all meadows had low phosphorus and low nitrogen content. In the present conditions, although some wildflowers do grow, the soil isn’t optimal to sustain the growth of many species but measures could be taken to improve the soil and more robust wildflowers could be selected to cope with soil conditions. The Friends of Badock’s Wood will be using the findings to revise their management plan for the site.

Dundry and Hartcliffe Wildlife Conservation Group – water pollution in Pigeonhouse stream tributaries

Students investigated water quality variances in five tributaries of the Pigeonhouse stream in Hartcliffe and whether this is influenced by land use in the area. The group collected samples to analyse the pH, nutrient content and temperature of the streams. The findings showed that the tributaries were healthy and unlikely to be contributing to water pollution levels in the Pigeonhouse stream and further downstream in the River Malago. The group suggested that high levels of nitrate in one tributary and Pigeonhouse stream were likely to be a result of run-off from neighbouring fertilised agricultural fields. E. Coli was prolific in all areas, the source of this will be a subject for future students to investigate. Dundry and Hartcliffe Wildlife Conservation Group will present the findings to the local neighbourhood partnership group.

Dundry and Hartcliffe Wildlife Conservation Group – effects of urban development and refuse on the Pigeonhouse Stream

Students investigated water quality along the Pigeonhouse stream in Hartcliffe. The group collected water samples to analyse for pH, nutrient content, turbidity and microplastic levels in the stream. Findings showed that microplastic pollution increased and turbidity (water cloudiness) decreased downstream as urbanisation increased. Ammonia and nitrogen concentrations were found to be high in the stream, but average compared to other streams in the region and within DEFRA safety standards. In-flow pipes from the surrounding urban areas are likely to be influencing the water quality in the stream. Dundry and Hartcliffe Wildlife Conservation Group will use the report to work with Bristol Waste to reduce fly-tipping in the area and with the local neighbourhood partnership to develop strategies to reduce pollution from the in-flow pipes.

Friends of Bristol Harbourside Reed Bed – impacts of reed beds on water quality in Bristol Floating Harbour

Students investigated spatial variation in water quality across the reed bed. The group collected twenty-one water samples and analysed for E.Coli, heavy metals, pH and nutrient content. Findings showed usual levels of heavy metals, except for zinc which was ten times higher than expected. There was no evidence that the reed bed influenced nutrient concentrations or pH levels, but this may be different if the research was conducted in summer during peak growing season. High levels of chlorophyll were found over the reed bed which can result in algae blooms. The group recommended that the reed beds should be cut back annually in autumn, this will reduce the amount of dead plant matter in the water to maintain healthy levels of zinc and chlorophyll in the reed bed. Friends of Bristol Harbourside Reed Bed will be using the findings to inform their management plan of the reed bed.

Friends of Bristol Harbourside Reed Bed – the health of the Bristol Floating Harbour reed bed

Students investigated concentrations of heavy metals and microplastics in the reed bed which would impact the reed bed ecology. The group collected ten sediment samples and five reed samples to test in the lab. Findings showed usual nitrate and phosphate levels, but zinc and potassium levels were higher than in comparable rivers which may be due to houseboats dumping excrement in the water. Microplastics were prolific in the sediment samples and identified as a major pollutant in the reed bed. The reed beds were filtering some pollutants in the water, particularly potassium, but these will re-enter the ecological system if the reeds are left to die back. The group recommended that reeds were cut back annually to reduce pollutants in the water. Friends of Bristol Harbourside Reed Bed will be using the findings to inform their management plan of the reed bed.

Bristol Zoo – air pollution at Bristol Zoo

Students investigated CO2 levels as an indicator of air pollution levels at Bristol Zoo. The group collected data using CO2 probes and gas samples at five sites at Bristol Zoo and two control sites at Fenswood Farm, Long Ashton and Bear Pit Roundabout, City Centre. The analysis accounted for environmental factors such as temperature and windspeed. Findings showed that air pollution was higher at the boundaries of Bristol Zoo than in the centre, but not as high as in the city centre. The group suggested further investigations into the impact of the high boundary wall and roadside vegetation on air pollution at Bristol Zoo would be useful. Bristol Zoo will be using the findings to as a baseline for more research into air pollution at the site.

Narroways Millennium Green Trust

Students investigated the impacts of firepits on soil pollution and compaction at the Narroways Hill conservation site in St Werburghs. The group collected twenty soil samples to test in the lab. Findings showed that soil compaction was high in some areas of the site, but no evidence linked this to firepits at the site. Soil moisture was found to increase further from the firepits. There was not significant evidence to show heavy metal pollutants at the sites, except for arsenic which the group are investigating further. Narroways Millennium Green Trust will be using the findings to inform public communications around fires at the site.

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This blog is written by Amy Walsh from Skills Bridge. If your organisation would benefit from similar research, please email amy@bristolgreencapital.org.

Read other blogs in this Green Great Britain Week series:
1. Just the tip of the iceberg: Climate research at the Bristol Glaciology Centre
2. Monitoring greenhouse gas emissions: Now more important than ever?
3. Digital future of renewable energy
4. The new carbon economy – transforming waste into a resource
5. Systems thinking: 5 ways to be a more sustainable university
6. Local students + local communities = action on the local environment

Global Goals, Local Action: Bristol and the SDGs

Posted on September 25, 2018April 3, 2023 by janet.crompton

This week is the #GlobalGoalsWeek which is a campaign to improve awareness about the UN Sustainable Development Goals (Global Goals or SDGs). The 17 Global Goals cover everything from Ending Poverty, to Climate Action and they have been called the closest thing the world has to a strategy. This week we’ll be publishing some of the SDG activity that’s been happening in Bristol. To follow what’s going on check out #BristolSDGs or #GlobalGoalsWeek we’re planning blog posts from amongst others the Mayor of Bristol, Bristol City Council’s SDG ambassador and other members of the Bristol SDG Alliance.
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As the Global Goals week commences we consider how the work towards localising the SDGs in Bristol has developed in the last 9 months and look to share some lessons on the process of localisation.

In 2015 the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were ratified by 193 of the UN member nations. These goals set ambitious targets to address worldwide issues of sustainable development, such as social inequality, responsible and inclusive economic development and environmental protection. They were created for everyone, everywhere and have been described as ‘the closest thing the world has to a strategy’.

Who will be responsible for ensuring we achieve these goals and how will they be achieved?
In the realm of international agreements, national governments have traditionally been responsible for local implementation. But a combination of profound global demographic shifts and a sense that national governments are increasingly incapable of tackling complex global challenges due to domestic political wrangling has given rise to a global movement to place cities at the heart of efforts to tackle both local and global challenges. This movement, which is coalescing around a constellation of city-to-city networks (such as ICLEI, C40 and the Global Parliament of Mayors), is now grappling with the challenge of ‘localising the SDGs’. How can we usefully translate this global agenda into local practice in a way that meaningfully transforms lives?

This is the question we are working to answer through a University of Bristol funded project on Localising the SDGs for Bristol, in partnership with the Bristol Green Capital Partnership (BGCP), and Bristol City Council.

To date the project has involved engagement locally and internationally. Our previous blog post came after the Global Ambition, Local Action conference, held in Los Angeles which Allan Macleod, the Cabot Institute SDG Research and Engagement Associate, attended. Just over a month later he was also part of the hundred of delegates who gathered in Bristol for the Data for Development Festival. During three days of plenaries, breakouts and workshops the role and use of data and technology in achieving and monitoring the SDGs was discussed. Additionally, Mayor Marvin Rees showed his local support and commitment to the SDGs by announcing an SDG Ambassador in his Cabinet (Councillor Anna Keen).

The strong leadership and commitment to the SDGs from Bristol’s mayor has been complimented by many stakeholders across the city. Bristol boasts an SDG Alliance consisting of members from organisations across Bristol including some of the city’s anchor institutions with both universities, the City Council and the Bristol Green Capital Partnership represented as members of the Alliance. The network has been growing and now consists of well over 50 stakeholders from diverse backgrounds looking to mobilise SDG activity in Bristol. Through a series of interviews with key city stakeholders and alliance members, a Bristol Method+ report was released during the UN High Level Political Forum in July 2018. This report detailed the initiatives and actions that have occurred locally towards making the SDGs more mainstream in the city.

Another way the SDGs have been made locally relevant is through the One City Plan. Our research seeks to identify and support mechanisms for embedding the SDGs in local planning and governance processes by engaging with a wide range of stakeholders in the city.

Bristol City Council, a pivotal stakeholder is currently working to bring partners together for a new One City Plan. This Plan seeks to use the collective power of Bristol’s key organisations to achieve a bigger impact by supporting partners, organisations and citizens to help solve key persistent city challenges and improve the lives of Bristolians across the city. The core themes behind this plan align with the SDGs and it provides a great opportunity for Bristol to lead nationally and internationally on the SDGs. As a result, the Goals were integrated into the plan and mapped onto Bristol’s local priorities. By building on the work in ‘Hacking the SDGs for US Cities’, 75 of the 169 SDGs targets were found to be directly relevant to Bristol. These targets are being blended together with locally-developed priorities to form the One City Plan goals to result in ‘Bristol’s SDGs’.

Our work with Bristol city council has shown three important features of localisation. Firstly, the SDGs largely overlap with the remit of most city councils. As a result of this, the most cost effective, and beneficial method of localisation is a translation of local priorities onto the goals and the integration of the goals into the local priorities of the city. Lastly, the SDGs provide an opportunity for city leaders to engage in discussions around the same topic. They provide a global language for city leaders to share learning and best practices across contexts and borders. This is especially important as cities are increasingly aiming to take a more prominent role in international leadership.

During our project, it has become clear that Bristol has developed a solid foundation for SDG localisation and has begun to be a global leader in implementing the SDGs. However, it is a particularly exciting time to be working collaboratively on implementing the SDGs in Bristol as the city will be hosting the Global Parliament of Mayors Annual Summit (GPM) in October. The GPM will provide Bristol with an additional opportunity to showcase its leadership and demonstrate its credentials as an important international city that is working to improve the lives of all its citizens, while also working to tackle the challenges that we face as a global community.

What experiences do you have of the SDGs abroad or in Bristol? Do you have an ideas or lessons that can be applied to Bristol? If you have any further questions or comments, feel free to get in touch at allan.macleod@bristol.ac.uk.

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This blog is written by Allan Macleod, SDG research and engagement associate working across Bristol Green Capital Partnership, Bristol City Council and the University of Bristol Cabot Institute for the Environment.

Allan Macleod

Cities’ contributions to the global SDGs: A Bristol view

Posted on August 7, 2018April 4, 2023 by janet.crompton

Earlier this month, people from around the globe gathered in New York for the annual review of the world’s progress towards achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), an event known as the ‘High Level Political Forum’ (HLPF). These globally-agreed goals were developed in 2015, providing a vision for what the world should look like in 2030. Covering all three dimensions of sustainability through 17 Goals, 169 targets and 244 indicators, the SDGs have been called ‘the closest thing the world has to a strategy’.

This year the HLPF focused on 6 of these Goals, including sustainable cities and communities, SDG 11. The inclusion of cities as a specific goal is a success, and it is the first time that a subnational unit has been included in a UN statistical reporting framework.

But cities have an important role to play in meeting all of the Goals, beyond just SDG11. Urbanisation is increasingly seen as a key cross cutting element in almost every aspect of sustainable development. Forecasts suggest that by 2050 almost 70% of the world’s people will live in cities. The concentration of people living and working in urban areas creates acute sustainable development challenges in cities. And what happens within individual cities can have far-reaching environmental impacts on resource use, pollution and carbon emissions in far-away places. Because local sustainable development challenges have national and even international implications, cities have the power and the opportunity to make progress towards the global SDGs, by tackling city-level challenges through innovative technical and organisational solutions.

Indeed, the 2017 HLPF declaration highlighted “the need to take appropriate action towards localizing and communicating the [SDGs] at all levels, from the national to the community and grassroots level […] Efforts should be made to reach out to all stakeholders, including subnational and local authorities.” (para 28)

So, to achieve the ambitious SDGs by 2030, cities must be fully engaged with all the goals, and can work with each other to share learnings, as well as interact at national and global policy levels. For example, New York City presented the first-ever official city-level review of progress towards the SDGs at the HLPF 2018 linked with their OneNYC approach – and invited other cities to work with them.

Despite Bristol’s many successes, we continue to face important challenges. Prominent among these is intense inequality across economic, social and environmental domains: such as income inequality, poor air quality and persistent gaps in health and education outcomes across the city. The SDGs offer a framework for taking on these challenges in an integrated way to achieve sustainable and inclusive prosperity that leaves no-one and nowhere – including nature – behind.

For the last few years, Bristol has been grappling with how it can best engage with the SDGs through an alliance of stakeholders from across the city. This work and their views have informed our ‘Driving the SDGs agenda at a city level in Bristol’ report, released during this year’s HLPF, where UK Stakeholders for Sustainable Development and partners launched an initial review of UK progress ‘Measuring Up’.

This tells the story of the Bristol SDG Alliance, formed in 2016 to advocate for the practical use of the SDGs in Bristol – to ‘localise’ the Goals to the city – and shares key learnings.

Hosted by Bristol Green Capital Partnership, in part because the SDG agenda integrates the environmental, social and economic dimensions of sustainability, the Alliance has submitted evidence to a parliamentary inquiry, commissioned an SDGs & Bristol report, and facilitated an innovative academic role to link SDG research and engagement in Bristol.

In this role, I have been able to work collaboratively with Bristol City Council on behalf of the Alliance to integrate the SDGs into the emerging One City Plan. In addition, many businesses and other organisations in the city appreciate the relevance of the SDGs to their work, such as Airbus and Triodos Bank, among others.

As we move forward, we will be grappling with some of the challenges facing other cities working to localise the SDGs. For example, how best to monitor progress.

This is a challenge even at the national level, with the UK’s national statistics office still working hard to assess and collect the data to report on the SDGs nearly 3 years after they were agreed – see the national reporting platform. Such monitoring challenges are more acute at a city level, with extra complexities and fewer resources available to address them.

For the SDGs to be achieved by 2030, challenges such as these will need to be overcome by cities. The theme for 2019’s SDG review is ‘inclusiveness and equality’, where the UK will also undertake its first official national review. Bristol is well-placed to contribute in 2019. Collectively the city may wish to follow New York’s initiative and report alongside the UK on our city’s progress next year.

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This blog is written by Allan Macleod, SDG research and engagement associate working across Bristol Green Capital Partnership, Bristol City Council and the University of Bristol. It has been reposted with kind permission from the Bristol Green Capital blog. View the original blog.

Allan Macleod